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1
KNOWING THAT I WAS going to have to get a job and make more money no matter what, I decided to use some of my cash to buy a car. I wandered down to one of the dealerships on 611 and walked among rows of used late ‘80s era Fords.
“See something you like?”
A salesman walked toward me with his hand out and a overly friendly smile on his face.
“Andy McCarthy at your service,” he said.
I shook his outstretched hand. “Dan Wells.”
“Pleased to meet you, Dan. What can I do you for?”
I told him I was looking for something cheap but reliable. I didn’t tell him that it only had to last me a few months. I pointed down a row of vehicles. “What’s the pricing like on these?”
“Any of these Taurus models will do you fine,” he said. He patted a dark blue sedan. “This baby only has thirty thousand miles. Not bad at all.” I immediately thought I should verify his claims with a lemon search online. Then I laughed. The salesman gave me a look.
“Sorry,” I said, “I just...never thought I’d be buying something used, but it’s the situation I’m in.”
“Well this will be perfect for you,” Andy said. “$1200. Cheap and reliable, like you said.”
He brought me into his office and drew up the paperwork. “Sorry for all this rigamarole but Uncle Sam likes things done a certain way.”
“Hey, listen,” I said, “Do you think there’d be room for a little discount if I pay you in all cash today?”
His eyes widened. “I can cut you down to $1000.”
“I can’t do more than seven,” I replied.
“Oh, Mr. Wells, you do drive a hard bargain. $750 and we can tell ol’ Uncle Sam to go sit on it and spin.” I nodded and he took two of the pieces of paper and put them back in a folder on his desk.
I pulled out a wad of hundreds. I hadn’t even considered the possibility of a credit check, but now I was sidestepping that potential landmine. I wondered what he thought of me, with my scabbed knuckles and ample supply of greenbacks. If he was suspicious of anything, he didn’t let on.
It didn’t take long to complete the paperwork and Andy McCarthy was all too happy to part me from just about all of my money. “Where you headed with your pretty new purchase, Mr. Wells?” he asked.
“I don’t know, to tell you the truth. I’m new in town.”
“Ah, well, welcome to our little corner of the world. What brings you?”
“I heard there were some job openings around,” I said, and thought of my conversation with Levi Berm.
“Yeah, I’d say jobs are in good supply these days. What do you do?”
“I’m in computers,” I said.
“A man of the future!” he said with a grin. “Well, while you hunt around you should check out the Jamison Diner if you get a chance. About fifteen minutes toward the northeast and they’ve got a blueberry pie to die for. Tell ‘em Andy sent you.”
I actually knew the diner quite well, and did very much enjoy their pie. I thanked Andy for his advice. “I should probably get moving though. Want to make the most of the daylight.”
“I hear you, my friend,” Andy said. “Let me have the boys polish your new baby and you’ll be on your way.”
I walked out of there a half hour later and got behind the wheel of my new car. I’d never driven that old a model before, though of course it wasn’t actually all that old. I won’t burden you with my analysis of the handling of a 1987 Ford Taurus. Suffice to say it drove.
The dealer had filled the gas tank before I took possession of the car, but I still noticed the signs outside of the gas stations along the road. $1.10 a gallon was actually more expensive than I would have guessed but still a hell of a lot cheaper than anything I could remember paying in fifteen years.
2
The first thing I had to do, other than some clothes shopping, of course, was get some kind of identification. If it weren’t for the knowledge that I could escape from almost anything in 1993 if necessary, I would never have chanced dealing with any kind of shady characters. Filled with confidence, I drove into the city and found my way to Chinatown where a little inquiring brought me to a room in the back of a grocery store. An old man surrounded by intimidating guards took my photo and created a fake driver’s license and paperwork for “Justin Bieber.” It continued to amuse me every time I thought about the shitty pop star whose identity I had assumed. The real deal wouldn’t be born for another year somewhere up in Canada.
Philadelphia was a dirty city, at least compared to its appearance in the present, and though I was too full of my own abilities to feel unsafe, I felt a little uncomfortable and I didn’t hang around long. I was happy when North Philly gave way to the lower suburbs along 611.
When I finally got back in the Waldorf area, I stopped at a Kmart and looked at a few different outfits. Without knowing what work, if any, I’d be able to find, I decided just to purchase a pair of shorts and a T-shirt from the discount racks. Classy stuff. I changed in my car outside of the parking lot. It was good to rid myself of the clothing that had followed me through time and would always remind me of punching Jeff Berger to death.
Between my falsified documents and my new clothes I was down to just enough money to make it a week or so if I ate two meals a day at fast food restaurants. The idea was tempting, but sort of gross at the same time. Better to make some cash. I set about the task of finding a job so I could actually stay alive while driving around in my hot new wheels. My simple solution of “day laborer” proved not to be so simple in practice. I had no clue where to find that kind of work. I was hampered by not having access to the Internet. How the hell did people find jobs in the past? I remembered the lottery printout in my wallet. I went to a drug store and purchased a five dollar ticket for that night’s Daily Number. I knew that in the morning I would be rewarded with over two thousand dollars, enough to support me for a while without raising any suspicions.
Though my money worries were put aside for the moment, I had more things on my mind. I drove around, traveling farther than I had yet journeyed on foot. Somehow, as my mind wandered and my driving went from aimless to autopilot, I found myself falling into my normal, 2013 pattern of behavior. Just as I had gravitated toward the familiar grounds of Shady Pines camp when I had confirmed the decision to make my first true journey back to my past, it was easy enough to follow the same roads and return to the camp twenty years earlier. Before I knew it I was pulling onto the dirt road leading to the camp’s entrance. I don’t really know what I was planning to do. I think I was just going to sit on the dock and stare out at the lake. Let my mind wander and perhaps produce a solution to all of life’s problems. At the very least, I thought I might be able to purge the horrid guilt of the Jeff Berger encounter which had never even happened.
3
The car’s tires rumbled over the crushed stone that provided the surface of the parking area. There were two vehicles already there. It was so rare in the present to find anybody at the camp outside of its operational season that I did a double take upon seeing the cars. I felt even more thrown by the row of trees dividing the parking lot from the sports fields that in 1993 were the only township-owned part of the land. I parked, observing not for the first time the strange experience of manually locking my car. I wondered if I’d be able to avoid being seen on my walk to the lake on the opposite side of the property from the parking lot. Though a direct route would have been better, I had to take the scenic route. I mean, come on.
The chuckwagon building looked refreshed, its red paint a vivid hue that showcased the respect the owners had for the property. Turning to my left, I saw what I had hoped to see— the white house, as it had always been before its demolition in 2003. Since my travels had begun I had experienced so many emotions. Confusion, happiness, freedom of spirit... a whole host of feelings. Seeing the camp’s main office for the first time in over a decade, I felt a sentiment I can only describe as “correct.” It was like the final piece of a puzzle had fit smoothly into place. I heard myself sigh with what sounded like relief. I had come to the source of so much of my nostalgia and instead of bringing me to my knees with sorrow it had filled me with the happiness and security of coming home. I walked slowly past the office, soaking it in as if I could possibly record every detail in my mind forever. Just as I was making my way past and was about to turn my attention to the pavilion up ahead I saw a large, handwritten sign. “Shady Pines Day Camp! Hiring for Summer 1993!” it said in cheerfully painted letters.
You’d think that the experience of destroying my timeline only a day earlier in my personal chronology would have made me think twice about getting involved in something so close to young Danny Wells’s life, but there’s something you need to understand about time travel, at least into one’s own past. It feels a little like returning from college and finding out that your parents sold the house and moved to Arizona. It gave me a lonely sensation of being a stranger in my own land. Because of that, and maybe because of my personality under any circumstances, I felt a constant pull toward the things that were familiar in my life. It was as if the universe itself was tugging me back to the front of the building.
I walked up the stairs practically bubbling over with curiosity. Reaching out to push open the screen door, I stepped into the main office, which was located in what had probably been a living room in another era that might have seemed familiar to Levi Berm. A woman sat at the desk just inside the front door, and a balding man with grey tufts of hair around his temples sat on the edge of the other desk in the room. I had a vague sense of having seen the woman before, but I certainly recognized the man as one of the directors of the camp. The place, at least in the era in which I now found myself, was privately owned and operated by these two older guys, yet they had hired a vast swarm of directors whose purpose, it seemed to the campers, was simply to stroll the grounds harassing the kids who weren’t participating in the scheduled activities.
The man, whom I only knew as “Uncle Jim,” stopped mid-conversation and looked me over. I fully expected him to open with, “How can I help you?” a phrase that constantly sparked panic in me as if the questioner could see through my charade before I’d even presented it. Instead, he smiled and said, “Coming in to escape the heat?”
“Actually,” I said, “I saw your sign outside and wanted to see what kind of positions were still available.” This was the truth. I was curious what, if anything, they would have available for a guy in his thirties. I was a little old to be a counselor and probably a little young to be a director, not that those jobs ever seemed to turn over. It was also only a couple weeks before the start of the summer season and I imagined most of the fundamental positions had been filled already.
“Well,” said Uncle Jim, “we’re pretty close to full with our counselors. We do have a couple openings still for specialists. What kinda skills do you have?”
I had an idea that nearly made me burst into laughter. “I’m pretty good with computers,” I said, thinking of how primitive the machines of 1993 were compared to the smartphones and touchscreen tablets of the modern world.
Uncle Jim smiled. “That’s perfect! The woman who was supposed to oversee the computer lab backed out yesterday. We basically just need somebody to oversee a couple of the games and programs we’ve got up there. The bunks rotate in and out in different periods and we have the computer club for the kids who choose to spend more time in that activity.”
“So you’ve got all the apps installed already?” I asked.
“Huh? Apps?” he questioned.
“Oh, I mean the games and all.”
“Um...we’ve got a bunch of disks up there with different programs. You can go up and take a look if you want.” He gestured toward a door that at first glance appeared to be a closet. I knew from personal experience that behind the door was a steep flight of stairs leading to a couple small rooms. Probably had been bedrooms in a long forgotten age. I remembered that one had been used by the camp for some kind of radio equipment while the other held the computers I recalled so fondly. Had it really only been a couple months since I’d reminisced about that little room? I was actually excited to check it out.
I opened the door and started up the stairs. Footsteps behind me revealed that Uncle Jim was following. “So, what’s your name?” he asked.
“Justin Bieber,” I said.
“Huh. You related to any of the Biebers who go to camp here? Got a few of them.”
I stepped off the stairs onto the wooden landing. “Not that I know of, but I guess anything’s possible.”
He laughed. “That’s for sure. At any rate, I’m Jim Johnson. ‘Course the kids and all around here call me—”
“Uncle Jim,” I blurted out.
“That’s right,” he said, surprise in his voice. “How’d you know?”
“Typical camp thing,” I replied. “Uncles and aunts.”
“Ha. Right you are. Anyhow, I’m in charge of wrapping up the hiring process here before the rest of the staff shows up and the ball really gets rolling.”
I feigned confusion, allowing him to steer me toward the room with computers. Didn’t want to come across like I’d been there before.
“Here they are. Pretty simple setup. I’m sure you can figure it out.”
I looked around the room. There were five old Apple Macintosh models on tables around the room. Boxes of disks and manuals were in the corner. The multiple window air conditioning units hummed as they cooled the space. Undoubtedly they would be straining throughout the summer to keep the room a reasonable temperature with so many warm bodies present and all the machines on and running.
“So,” said Uncle Jim, “should we head back down and break out the contract? If you’re game I’d be happy to have you onboard. We’ve got our orientations and all that coming up in the next couple weeks.”
“That works for me,” I said. I was more thrilled than I wanted to let on. I would enjoy being among all the old machines and getting to stay in the relatively cool interior of the building all summer long. I thought that the position would also keep me a safe distance from my younger self. I hadn’t signed up for the computer club until the following year, if my memory was correct. That meant just the occasional interaction, and there’d be so many other kids in the bunk that I didn’t have to say much of anything to myself.
I followed Uncle Jim back down the stairs. He turned left at the bottom and led me to one of the back offices. He sat down in a worn chair covered with a green plastic material doing a poor imitation of leather. He motioned for me to sit in the chair across the desk from him.
“Okay, Justin,” he said, “I’ve got some papers here for you to sign.” He fanned through a collection of folders on the desk, found the one he wanted and pulled out a copy of the employment contract. “It’s an hourly rate... eight dollars per. I know it’s not much but I’m guessing this is a side job for you. You a teacher?”
“Yeah, I teach computers over at the high school.”
He was amused by this. “So you’re a pro! You were holding out on me, Mr. Bieber!”
I stared at the form, this time prepared for the issue of a social security number. I hated lying on something so important but I had the false paperwork to back up my identity. Besides, it wasn’t likely they would check into it any time soon. It wouldn’t become an issue until tax time, and I’d be long gone by then.
“Can I ask you something?” inquired Uncle Jim.
“Sure...”
“I’ve been hearing all this talk about Prodigy... you know that service that you go on with a whatchamacallit phone thing?”
“A modem. Sure, yeah, I know it.”
“Right, right. A modem. Some of my friends say it’s really great. Do you think it’s worth the money?”
I tried to decide how to answer. I didn’t think that changing the man’s mind about using an online service provider would make or break the course of his life, but then I didn’t have extensive enough experience to say. As it was, I was there on a mission to fix the timestream, not play around with it any further.
“I can’t tell you whether or not you’ll get your money’s worth,” I said. “It’s a personal decision. I will tell you though that the Internet isn’t going away. It’s something you’ll end up using one day. Whether or not you need it now, I can’t say for sure.”
I felt satisfied. Honest answer, with no damaging complications, right?
It wasn’t until I’d thanked Uncle Jim and the receptionist and made it back onto the road in my trusty Ford that I realized how misguided I’d been. There I was worrying about my answer to a question, but I’d just filled a vacancy that probably belonged to somebody else in the proper timeline. No matter how I tried to maneuver in the past, it seemed I’d blunder my way into changing something.